Tayang Khan of the Naiman

Who he is

Name

Tai Buqa (Taibuqa), called Tayang Khan (Tayang is usually explained as the Chinese tai wang, 'great prince')

Title

Khan (qan) of the steppe Naiman; the second Naiman khan beside his brother Buyiruq

Since

After the death of Inanch Bilge Khan (1198 on Wikipedia's reading, not pinned)

Born

not known; he is an adult with a grown son in 1204, so perhaps 40 to 55 in 1200 (a guess)

Family

Guchugud branch of the Naiman. Son of Inanch Bilge Khan; brother or half-brother of Buyiruq. Gurbesu is his mother in the Secret History and his father's widow whom he married in Rashid's account (Wikipedia: a levirate marriage). One son is named: Kuchlug.

Confidence

medium for the man, low for where he sits

Secret History 166, 187-198; Wikipedia on Inanch Bilge, Buyruq, Kuchlug, Toghrul and the Naimans; Li Tang on the Naiman Christians; Dilber Usul and a second summary on Tata-tonga (Yuanshi biography 124). Rashid, Juvaini and the Yuanshi were not opened.

Overlord

None shown. Wikipedia (citing Biran) has the Naiman subject to the Qara Khitai until 1175; no tribute is dated later.

What it holds

• The steppe Naiman, a following of herding clans (no count is known)
• His ordu: his mother or stepmother Gurbesu, his wives (none named), his son Kuchlug, the chancery of Uyghur scribes and his seal
• The Black Irtysh, Lake Zaysan, the Bukhtarma and Kurchum valleys, and the Altai front as winter and summer ground (Wikipedia's summaries; not pinned)
• Frontier watchmen (sübechi) on the Khangai and Tamir edge facing Toghrul, among them Qori Subechi (attested 1203)
• Captains and counsellors: Kokse Sabraq (with Buyiruq in the Year of the Dog, with Tayang in 1204), Qori Subechi, Torbi-tashi (a messenger of 1204)

How it was acquired

Inherited from Inanch Bilge Khan; no source describes the succession. Wikipedia dates Inanch Bilge's independence from the Khitan to 1143 and has him die in 1198 or 1202.

Allies and rivals

Enemies: Toghrul and the Kereyit (old, through the Naiman backing of Erke Qara in 1174); Temujin (not yet an open enemy). Brother: Buyiruq, with whom no war is recorded. Friends in 1204: Jamuqa, Toqto'a of the Merkit, Qutuqa of the Oirat; Alaqush of the Ongud refuses to be his right flank and warns Temujin. In 1203 Jamuqa claims that Temujin is dealing with him.

How things stand that morning

He holds the Naiman of the steppe and keeps his court in the western lowlands, probably the Zaysan basin and the Black Irtysh in winter (a guess; the Secret History shows him at Mount Khangai only in 1204). On the working reading (the regional brief's '1199?', Rashid, the Chinese annals) the Kereyit-Mongol army has beaten his brother Buyiruq at Kishil-bash this autumn and Kokse Sabraq has struck back at Senggum, but Tayang's own lands were not touched and no Naiman army is in the field this winter; on the Secret History's order none of that has happened yet. Either way Tayang took no part in that campaign (1199 or 1202) and was not at the Argun oath of 1201.

Wealth

Herds; the roads to Beshbaliq and the Uyghur oases; Uyghur and Muslim merchants (thin); the revenue kept by his Uyghur tutor, which implies grain, cloth and goods in kind.

Military

Naiman horse archers; commanders Kokse Sabraq and Qori Subechi; his son Kuchlug urges attack in 1204 while Tayang would retreat to the Altai. No castle, no count.

Threats

• Toghrul, who will look to avenge 1174 and Erke Qara
• Temujin
• Jamuqa's schemes
• His brother's separate fortunes

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1203 to spring 1204Toghrul dies at the hands of the Naiman watchman Qori Subechi; Tayang tramples his head, marches to the Khangai and is beaten at Chakir-ma'ut below Naqu-kun; he dies of his wounds.Depends on: The Kereyit collapse of 1203 and Tayang's wish to attack. Stopped by: Tayang's staying in the Altai as Kokse Sabraq advised.

Places of note

• Tayang's winter ordu (guess): The Zaysan basin where the Black Irtysh enters the lake; a winter ground, not a known camp.

Where the sources disagree

• Dating of the war on Buyiruq at Lake Kishil-bash and of Kokse Sabraq's seizure of Senggum's household. Rashid al-Din's order of events, the Chinese annals and the older English histories (Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, pp. 338-339, via Wikipedia's article 'Naimans') put a first campaign by Temujin and Toghrul against Buyiruq in 1199, before the Tayichi'ut war of 1200. The regional brief marks it '1199?', and the central-steppe records (Kereyit and the Khangai belt) treat it as done, so this record uses it as the working reading: by 1 January 1200 the Kereyit and Mongols have beaten Buyiruq at Kishil-bash and his captain Kokse Sabraq has struck back at Senggum on the way home (autumn 1199). The Secret History, in the translation read for this record, tells the same two episodes after the oath at the Argun (Year of the Cock, 1201) and Koyiten, in the Year of the Dog, which its footnotes give as 1202; on that order nothing has been fought between the Naiman and the Kereyit-Mongol allies on 1 January 1200 and both episodes lie in the future. The two cannot be reconciled with certainty and each record carries both. We could not open the Yuanshi or the Shengwu qinzheng lu (ctext and zh.wikisource were unreachable), so the Chinese side rests on secondary citations.
• Wikipedia gives Tayang's seat as the lands between the Black Irtysh and the Bukhtarma (Buyruq article) or near Lake Zaysan (Inanch Bilge article); the Secret History finds him at Qachir Water on Mount Khangai in spring 1204. The west is taken as his winter ground, the east as the summer range he uses to meet the Mongols.
• Gurbesu: mother of Tayang in the Secret History (sections 189, 196), father's widow and later wife in Rashid and the Wikipedia article on Inanch Bilge. Both may be true: a stepmother married by levirate.

Evidence: No source describes Tayang's rule before 1202; his person and household come from the stories of 1203-04 and from the Chinese biography of his Uyghur tutor.

On the map: Tayang's real range is not known; the drawing gives him the Irtysh end of the Naiman country and leaves the Khovd and Dzavkhan steppe to the 'Naiman clans' province.

Primary sources for The Naiman

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
• History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
• Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online